The Summertime Girls

by Laura Hankin

  “Well, I have things that I need to say to you, things that I should have said years ago, and I’ll say them to your face or I’ll say them to your door, but you’re going to hear them!”

  No response. Then, a moment later, classical music began blaring inside the house. Horns and violins commenced an auditory assault, and Grandma Stella turned around, shaking her head. “Darling,” she said to Beth, “get the keys.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe if we just wait a little bit—”

  “Get the keys.”

  So Beth ducked into the azalea bush, trying to push aside the sweet flowers as gently as possible as she searched for the key ring. She crouched and stuck her hand out, feeling through the dirt and the branches. Right as she’d finally grasped them, the classical music got louder. When she stuck her head out of the bush, she saw Penny Joan Munson standing in her open doorway, her face pinched and furious, her arms waving wildly in the air.

  “Shame on you, getting your granddaughter to root around in my azaleas! They are a delicate flower and you have no right to ruin them,” Penny Joan roared.

  All in a rush, Grandma Stella began to talk. “I’m sorry I have been a terrible friend. I’m sorry that Louis died and I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry that I stood you up on Wednesday night—I didn’t even know about meeting you at Monroe’s, I didn’t read the paper that day, and so I missed the letter in Valerie’s column, which I didn’t even write, and . . .” Grandma Stella seemed to realize she was rambling. She stopped for a moment to compose herself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it. I’m sorry because”—tears started to cloud her voice, so she cleared her throat—“because I have missed you every day since we stopped speaking.”

  The song inside Penny Joan’s house came to an abrupt end, and the two women faced each other in silence.

  “You’re a crazy old mule, Stella,” Penny Joan said. And then her face crumpled and her eyes got wet. “And I’ve missed you too.”

  Simultaneously, they wrapped their arms around each other. Another piece of music came blasting out of Penny Joan’s house. Some greatest classical hits CD compilation, Beth figured. Timpani and strings bellowed in a great fanfare, startling the two women apart, and they both wiped their eyes.

  “Can you turn off that infernal music?” Grandma Stella asked.

  “If you’ll get your granddaughter out of my flowers.”

  “Meet you back here in a minute.”

  Beth stepped out of the azaleas as Grandma Stella came toward her. Her face was still streaming tears, but her walk was definitely a little lighter. She even did a little hop as she approached, an old-fashioned dance move.

  “Thank you, my darling,” she said, wiping leaves and dirt off Beth’s face and giving her that completely focused Grandma Stella look that promised nothing but love. “Now, I’m not going to push and pry about what happened with you and Ally, but I am going to say that I wish I’d done this twenty years earlier.”

  Beth considered the way Grandma Stella radiated relief, and how nice it would be to join her in that lovely state. But still, the mention of Ally made her chest feel tight. It might have been hatred, or anger, or something else that she couldn’t quite identify, but she knew she didn’t like the feeling. She wasn’t sure if she could forget everything that Ally had laid on her, or forgive her as easily as Penny Joan Munson seemed to have forgiven Grandma Stella. All that Ally had said and done the night she left stuck in her throat.

  Beth hugged Grandma Stella silently. “Get back to Penny Joan!” she said.

  • • •

  THE next day, Beth stood amid all the party preparation as the hours ticked away. Her parents bustled around her, setting up folding chairs and tables under a huge white tent on the lawn. They’d gotten in early that morning, with their long hugs and their go-getter determination to give Grandma Stella a good time. “Oh,” her mom had sighed when she’d gotten out of the car and breathed in the fresh Maine air, “it feels so good to have all of us here, back together again. But where’s Ally?”

  They’d been more easily deflected by Beth’s excuses than Grandma Stella. After years of dealing with Marsha while scheduling trips and playdates for the girls, Beth’s parents were all too familiar with her scattershot planning and last-minute ideas, so they carried on, helping with the party setup and oblivious to the secrets rebounding inside their daughter, oblivious that they were about to lose her to Haiti again, oblivious that she’d sworn off contact with the girl they considered practically a second daughter.

  Beth was racing to finish tagging all the furniture and knickknacks they’d dragged outside for the yard sale when a car pulled into the driveway. She looked up, wondering which hyperpunctual guest had arrived so early. But the guy getting out of the car didn’t look like he’d come for the party.

  “Hey,” Nick said. “Beth, right?”

  “Um. Yes. Hi.”

  He stood awkwardly, his scruffiness out of place in Grandma Stella’s yard. She felt herself standing awkwardly too, folding her arms reflexively around her waist in a self-protective gesture. “Ally’s not here,” she said. “She had to go back to New York.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, and something in the way he said it raised the hairs on the back of Beth’s neck. “I drove her to the airport.” He looked smug saying this, but also deeply uncomfortable, and that was when she knew that something had happened between them. She didn’t want to picture it, but she couldn’t stop herself from seeing a brief flash of the two of them, pressed together. Ally, how could you? she thought. And then she remembered lying in bed with Ally years ago, at the first of their many sleepovers, and summoning up the courage to ask her why her parents had gotten divorced.

  “I don’t really know,” Ally had said in a small voice. “A lot of reasons. I’m not sure, but I think maybe my dad cheated on my mom.”

  “Really?” Beth had been shocked. “Why do you think that?”

  “She’s said some stuff about how you can’t trust men. So I think that’s what she means.”

  “That sucks, though. And it can’t be true! There are lots of good men in the world! I bet James Van Der Beek would never cheat on the woman he married, or Carson Daly.”

  “Yeah,” Ally had agreed solemnly, absolutely certain, like Beth, about the infallibility of their celebrity crushes. “I just don’t understand,” Ally had said then, turning over and squeezing her pillow. “Like, why would you ever do that to another person? My husband is never going to cheat on me. I’d never marry a man who would do that.” They’d agreed then, righteous and pure, that there was a certain way that the world should work, and that they weren’t going to have anything to do with people who spoiled that.

  “What do you want?” Beth asked Nick now. The anger she felt at him and at Ally made her words come out abruptly.

  “She left this in my car,” he said, holding up a CD. “I think it fell out of her bag. I wanted to send it to her, but I don’t have her address.”

  “Don’t you have her phone number?”

  “Yeah.” Now the smugness disappeared. “She’s . . . uh, not really answering my texts. Can you just send it to her?”

  “Sure. Fine,” Beth said, and held out her hand for the CD.

  “Cool,” Nick said. As soon as the CD left his hands, he turned around and headed back to his car. He opened the door, then stopped, turning back to look at her like he didn’t want to say what he was going to say. “You might want to listen to it before you send it to her.” Then he got in and drove away.

  Beth walked inside, headed straight to the trash can. She pressed down on the pedal, flipping the lid up. But her hand hesitated. It wouldn’t let go of the CD. She didn’t really want to hear Ally’s voice right now. She didn’t know if she could stand a cutesy song, all the doo doo doos and Ally’s honeyed tone in light of what she knew. But she couldn’t throw it out. She remember
ed Ally pulling back at the record store when Nick had asked if they should play the song, and how she’d looked at Beth almost fearfully.

  She took the CD to the living room, to the old player Grandma Stella had next to the television. She turned the volume way down low, not wanting her parents to see or hear what she was doing. She lifted the CD out of its case and into the player, sat down on the floor, and put her ear against the speaker. Then she pressed play.

  Beth heard nothing for a couple of seconds, then, softly, the first notes from a guitar. They started spare, then built into melancholy chords. Finally, Ally started to sing.

  Won’t you come to the battlefield? We’ll lay there in the grass

  We can stay in the battlefield and somehow time will pass

  ’Cause the moss and the willow trees, they grow to cover bone

  Won’t you come to the battlefield? I can’t go there alone.

  Now the guitar got louder, and piano notes cascaded. The gentle but insistent thump of drums anchored the background. Beth tried to stay unmoved. This isn’t that great, she told herself. These lyrics aren’t even grammatically correct. It’s lie, not lay. But already a lump had started to rise in her throat.

  I can throw away my horns there. Break your halo into two

  And then we’ll attempt to share it. I’ll take half of it from you

  ’Cause it’s hard to see the battlefield when light surrounds your head

  Please come to the battlefield, don’t leave me here for dead.

  Ally’s voice no longer sounded to Beth like a little pot of honey. Now it was a honeycomb lifted straight from the hive—still sweet, but messier, with hidden channels, and the possibility of a sting.

  We’ll be safe in the battlefield till we’ve had time to heal

  Oh yes, safe in the battlefield, just tell me how you feel

  ’Cause we’ve run from the battlefield too many times before

  Oh come to the battlefield

  Come to the battlefield

  Come to the battlefield

  We’ll settle up the score

  Beth didn’t want the song to end, but it did. The last notes trembled in the air as they faded. She lay down on the floor, her face against the rug, and wept. As her nose ran and her body heaved, she felt as if she’d unleashed more than a great torrent of tears and snot. The sadness that had been pushing against a dam inside her was all rushing out with a swoosh, faster than she could release it. These tears felt different than the ones she’d been crying in Haiti. Yes, they were wretched and painful but they were also hopeful. And grateful.

  Because now she could admit to herself something that she’d been trying to ignore for months. She didn’t want to live in Haiti. She didn’t want to leave her family, to leave the possibility of a life with some modicum of normalcy. She wanted to help people, and then she wanted to be able to come home. And she wanted, maybe someday, to share that home with someone, with a guy who cared about helping and doing good too, but who also cared about splashing in ponds and kissing her hard in the sunlight.

  Somehow Ally’s song had revealed her need for all of this. Now that Beth’s longings were laid bare and she was facing them full-on, they squirmed a bit under her scrutiny. Still, they stood their ground.

  Ally was right. Beth’s halo had gotten too heavy. She didn’t think she could wear it anymore. But that was okay.

  She’d thought that running away from Haiti was the only kind of running away there was. But that wasn’t true. Going back was a form of running away too, of running away from the people she loved and who loved her. And half a halo wasn’t bad at all.

  Ally had changed from the girl Beth had fallen in love with back when they’d met in fifth grade. Sometimes she looked at her and didn’t recognize her, but then again, sometimes she didn’t recognize herself. She thought about that day when they’d gone to the battlefield together a few years into their friendship, when Ally had told her things and she’d told Ally things right back, things she hadn’t thought she could tell anyone. Ally had flaws, sure, but she had told herself that she could love her anyway. Grandma Stella’s words from yesterday rang in her head. She wasn’t a perfect friend to me. No one is a perfect friend all the time. I certainly wasn’t. Somehow she’d forgotten what eighth-grade Beth had known with such certainty.

  She’d spent parts of the last two weeks, and all of the last two days, telling herself that a friendship with Ally made no sense anymore. They’d grown too far apart, stood on opposite sides of an ocean and tried in vain to translate each other’s shouting. But they hadn’t needed to shout. Ally could write a song and understand something so fundamental about Beth, about who Beth had been and who Beth was now and who Beth might be in the future. And that was something worth fighting for. Even if the fighting was messy and painful, there would be time for both of them to heal.

  “Pumpkin,” her father called, pulling her back to the here and now. “The guests are starting to arrive! Come outside!”

  Beth cleared her throat of the mess her tears had made. “I’ll be right there!” she said. She ran to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, then pulled her phone out of the pocket of her shorts. Shakily, she dialed Ally’s number, trying to rehearse what she was going to say when she picked up. She found it difficult to make the words form logical sentences, and hoped blindly that they would arrange themselves into something that made sense once she heard Ally’s voice. The phone rang once.

  “Hey—” Ally said.

  “Ally! Listen, I—”

  “Apparently I can’t come to the phone right now. Nooooo! But leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as humanly possible. Thanks!”

  Voice mail. Panicked, Beth hung up and stared at the phone, uncertain how to cope with this roadblock. She tried calling back. Still no Ally, just her chirpy message.

  “Ally,” she said. “I need to talk to you. Please call me back.” Her voice sounded much calmer than she’d expected it to. “Thank you for your time,” she added, and then hung up.

  She thought about how Ally had sent her e-mail upon e-mail, begging for her response, and she’d ignored them all. Twenty minutes earlier, if Ally had called her, she probably wouldn’t even have picked up. In fact, she might have deleted any messages Ally left for her without listening to them, her anger stronger than any attempts at apology.

  Maybe she could take the car and drive down to New York. She even started toward the bathroom door, ready to toss some supplies in a bag and go. But as she opened it, she heard the murmur of guests on the lawn outside. She had to stay for the party. Grandma Stella needed her. She could go tomorrow. She’d get through tonight, and then if Ally still hadn’t called her back, she’d go stand in front of her door until something changed.

  Still, alternate scenarios kept running through her head. What if, somehow, between now and tomorrow, Ally had hardened herself beyond a breaking point?

  No, she decided. She’d go tonight. Grandma Stella would understand.

  She walked out to the lawn, unable to concentrate on anything but finding Grandma Stella. Already, dusk had darkened the sky. The lanterns had been turned on. They hung in trees and nestled in flower beds, turning the entire yard into a glowing wonderland. The scent of roses from the garden blew along on the breeze. People milled around, chatting and laughing. Some of them poked through the belongings lying out on the lawn, deciding what piece of the house they wanted for their own. Beth walked right by Valerie, squaring off with a bespectacled, pleasant-looking man over Grandma Stella’s love seat, just in time to hear him say, “Fine, I’ll let you have it if I can take you to dinner.” Then she passed Mr. and Mrs. Murney, who called out to her excitedly about how, even though they’d closed the arcade, they’d been getting together the funds to open a new business, this time with more video games. “I really think the youth will enjoy it!” Mr. Murney said, and Beth nodded ab
sently, her mind somewhere else completely.

  It seemed like the entire town had turned up for the party. Beth knew how much this must have meant to her grandmother, seeing everyone who loved her gathered in one place. But dammit, this makes it really hard to find anyone.

  She walked past Owen’s parents, doing a double take as she registered who they were. She tried, furtively, to look around for Owen as they walked toward her. “Beth!” Mr. Mulberry said. “We haven’t seen you all summer! Owen mentioned that you came into the store last week. I hope he offered you a lollipop.”

  “Oh yes, he was very generous.” She did her best to sound casual as she asked, “Is he here tonight?”

  “No,” Mrs. Mulberry said. “He couldn’t make it, unfortunately. Said he was feeling too tired. I don’t know why he’d pass up a party like this, but I suppose we’ve been working him hard at the store.”

  “Only because we know he can handle it,” Mr. Mulberry said. “And because we need to get as much of him as we can before he leaves us for the big city in the fall.”

  “That boy,” Mrs. Mulberry said, sounding like she was about to cry. “We’re so lucky to have him. He’s a treasure.”

  “He is,” Beth said. “And you both are too.” Spontaneously, she hugged them both, quick and hard, then pulled back. “Excuse me, I have to go find my grandmother.”

  Finally, she pushed through a group of men silently drinking beer and saw Grandma Stella standing by the bowls of chips, surveying the party. From her perch at the snack table, Grandma Stella beamed and kissed people as they walked past. Then Penny Joan came up and slipped her arm into the crook of her elbow. Calmly, they stood together, in the eye of some beautiful party-storm. Beth hated to interrupt them. But she had made her decision. She needed to leave.

  As she took a step forward, she felt a tap on her shoulder. I’m never going to get out of here, she thought. She turned around, ready to shake off another neighbor with a brief, professional smile. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk right now—”